Rolly Poley, faithful companion and Pearl River Blues Berry Farm guard dog, passed away on the morning of Wednesday, December 10, 2014. He was 14-years-old.

While on a visit from Arkansas, R.P. (as he was nicknamed) found a home at the blueberry farm through a freak accident in February 2001. While sleeping up against the wheel of a car, young Rolly was accidentally run over when the car was started up and moved forward. Yipping and howling ensued. The owner of the pup wanted to ‘put the dog down’ to end its misery. But farmer Cirilo Villa stepped forward and volunteer to patch him up. Sustaining broken ribs, front arm and shoulder, the 3-month-old puppy was immediately adopted by Villa and Amy and Alan Phelps. “We had already fallen in love with him during his brief stay and were thinking of keeping him,” said Amy Phelps. “But with all of his bandages and injuries, he was irresistible. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Born in Conway, Arkansas, in late 2000, Rolly Poley was raised by a single mother, a registered white Labrador named Sadie. He was the bigger of two pups in a small litter that included his sister, Blazes. With a healthy appetite and happy demeanor, the puppy was named Rolly Poley for a bluegrass song written by Fred Rose and first sung by Bob Wills. “People always ask why I chose that name. I just tell them to listen to that song and imagine watching a chubby, happy puppy run and stumble over his milk-bloated tummy!” Amy said, laughing. “It fit him perfectly.”

The pup quickly healed from his injuries and grew into a loyal guard dog, faithfully patrolling the blueberry field for over a decade. Sporting black fur with tan accents, he was a handsome canine, what the local veterinarian called a “black and tan” shepherd-lab mix. With emotive, dark brown eyes, calm character and ever present smile, R.P. quickly became a favorite with the farmers, their many friends and blueberry customers.Not only did R.P.’s Labrador blood lend him his noble stature, but it also gave him the propensity to be a good worker. “All we had to do was say ‘We have a special job. Do you want to help?’ and Rolly was game,” Amy said. While pruning trees or bushes, R.P. frequently clamped branches in his jaws and helped haul. He could even be counted on to herd cows and chickens and chase away coyotes, hawks and other predators. During blueberry season, he worked twice as hard as the farmers, greeting customers, allowing kids to pet him and shadowing the many pickers in the blueberry field.The blueberry farmers quickly learned to look out for Rolly because he always followed them everywhere.“If we worked, he worked.” Villa said. It was common to find R.P. trailing behind Cirilo in the Mississippi heat as he disced or bush hogged on the tractor or cut grass on the riding lawn mower. “I would have to stop for water—not for me, I carried my own water—but for R.P. He wouldn’t stop unless I stopped.” But R.P.’s real calling was his ability to listen. “You could talk to him about anything—love, loss, crop failure, conflict, solutions, the births and deaths of family and friends,” said Amy. “He heard it all.” He listened to kids, teenagers, city folks, the aged and always with an open heart. He had friends of all races, religions, sexes and philosophies. He understood most languages, even the cats—although he didn’t care much for opossums who killed the farm’s chickens.At times he was the object of discrimination because he was big and black and could look intimidating—a Rottweiler-like fur stretched over a Labrador’s frame. Folks would become afraid and shy away from him. But once they got to know him he was a favorite. He could read people’s hearts and shunned conflicts. Amy said: “He had a gift of making peace, and he shared his gift with others.”His reputation as the farm’s “therapy dog” was solidified after Hurricane Katrina when the farmers discovered R.P.’s ability to heal folks outside the PRB team. “It was the summer of 2006, and we opened up our hurricane battered farm. We didn’t have a big harvest that year but we knew our people wanted to come hang out at the farm,” Amy said. “People everywhere had lost a lot—homes, schools, jobs, loved ones. Well, we kept finding customers hanging out with the dogs, especially R.P. Several times we found folks crying and petting Rolly. They were telling R.P. their storm stories, and he would just sit and absorb it all.”As he aged, Rolly slowed down and developed a pronounced limp, but he never got mean. He grew closer to Alan who patiently lifted the dog’s stiffening rear legs so he could walk. Neighbors on Curt Rester Road saw Alan and R.P. making their daily walks with the aging dog lagging behind at ever greater distances in the last few months.

R.P. loved eating dirt on a daily basis and blueberries every summer. He was famous for sitting with his front paws elegantly crossed. He was an easy traveler and enjoyed riding to nearby towns, New Orleans, and the 1,100 mile drive to Washington, DC. For many years he spent Winter months in the nation’s capital and learned to love the city life. During the football season, Rolly proudly wore a black and gold lamé cape with #26 on it. (R.P. loved Deuce McAllister!) Saints fans might remember that for quite a few years a costumed R.P. would walk a pre-game pep-patrol around the New Orleans Superdome with the other farm dog, McGuffin, who wore a cape with #87 for Joe Horn.He will be remembered for so much: his big bark and his gentleness with baby chicks and bunnies; for the velvety plush fur he wore all his life; for the way his ears flapped when he ran; for his moan when you rubbed his right ear; and, of course, his playful rolling after a great meal. Amy said he had a great sense of smell and could find her no matter how hard she hid. She said she will always be grateful that he never stopped looking for her.R.P. took his last ride on the tailgate of the 1991 Ford pick up truck he loved, which served as his funeral cortege. A small funeral service was held at PRB where he was laid on a bed of pine needles and camellia blooms and buried under an old oak tree near farm companions who had preceded him in death.Rolly leaves behind his loving owners Amy and Alan Phelps, Cirilo Villa, his canine companions, McGuffin and Hobolochito; Georgia Bean and Petri the cats; and assorted chickens who shall remain nameless in their grief.

A few days back on an overcast afternoon, Cirilo and I drove out to sow some watermelon seeds in Field I, one of our small plots bordering the northern boundary of Pearl River Blues. Our route took us past our previous weeks of sowing and transplanting. Everywhere the bright green of freshly sprouted crops greeted us, giving us both much-needed pats our the backs. We pointed out our small triumphs: “The buckwheat has germinated…The corn is coming along!” Then we passed Field F. “F” has always been a weird little growing spot. It is only about an eighth of an acre and has a big cedar tree growing in its west side. Most farmers would have long ago yanked this tree from their field, but I had fallen in love with it back in 1999 when Alan and I bought the farm, and we learned to grow around the tree. Then came the fury of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the old cedar was topped and cruelly twisted—its expression altered forever. Cirilo trimmed the mangled limbs of the survivor, but it still looked…goofy, especially one limb that Katrina had missed. It remained like a defiant fist held high, waving in the air, giving Field F its quirky personality. Back in January, Cirilo and I had planned that Field F would be home to our 2014 season of tomatillos, sunflowers, and squashes. Driving past F, we could see two, hundred foot rows made up of humps of earth—squash mounds spaced about a yard apart. The mounds had been planted two weeks earlier with three seeds each. Now sprouting from the earth were consistent clusters of two to three young squash plants, each seedling with two vigorous club-shaped cotyledons and a few true leaves popping out of the its center. Success! All humps had germinated seeds. My eye followed the row to the 16 mounds of soil at the northern end of the row. They were uniformly vacant of squash seedlings. “Hey, didn’t I plant this whole row of squash?” I asked Cirilo, unable to remember without my notebook of sowing details. “Yes,” he said, pausing. “Don’t you remember what you put there?” Another pause. “Your ‘special’ squash seeds?” Yes, I thought. I did remember. I had planted the row south to north with groupings of: Round green french zucchinis, yellow crook neck squashes, Dunja zucchinis and…Ugh! I flushed, …the Cocozelles at the northern end, where there was no growth. Cocozelle zucchinis are an Italian heirloom that produces beautiful summer squashes striped in dark and pale green. I reviewed the growing conditions: All of the seeds had been organic. All had been planted using rich mulch and the correct seed depths and watered during germination. However, all of the seeds had been newly purchased—except for the Cocozelles. I remember looking at the unopened seed packages leftover from the 2011 season and decided to get one more year out of them. Cirilo must have seen them, too, and shook his head as I stubbornly planted these ‘special’ seeds. I guess I am a repeat offender of using old seed. I do buy new seeds but want to get my money’s worth, so I save and use seeds from previous seasons as an emergency backup. Sometimes the old seeds rescue us, but usually they are slower to germinate and are not as vigorous as new seeds. But as an optimist, I hold fast to a hopefulness of any seed. Shouldn’t an old seed get a chance to germinate and fulfill its destiny? The reality of the dead cocozelle seeds bumped into Cirilo's question still hanging in the air. “Yep. I remember which seed I used,” I answered. “Those old Cocozelles.” I wanted to add that their seed packets were sealed and marked “good through 2015” but choked on it. We both stared at the barren mounds. They were not good. Cirilo sighed and shook his head. “You can be as hopeful as you like, but old seed is old seed.” Then we left to plant watermelons with new 2014 seeds, his comments ringing in my head. A few days later I returned to Field F with the fresh 2014 Cocozelle zucchini seeds. I replanted those 16 mounds with the hopefulness of new seed.

The greywater didn’t seem that grey but clear with a trace of brown sand settled at the bottom of Mom’s old Tupperware container. Washing the sand off the freshly picked bok choy took work but was worth the effort. Nobody likes to eat a bowl of sandy stir fried veggies. Most of the Mississippi dirt was caught in the broad white main rib of each leaf and vacated easily. The sandiest veggies seemed to be spinach, leeks, and kales, where soil hid in the contours of leaves. Methodically I rinsed and continued with celery, carrots, a Japanese leek, capturing the rinsing water in the gallon container in the sink. Once filled I walked out the door and poured the contents over the nearest neediest plant on the deck. Back and forth I trekked from the kitchen to the backyard, watering the potted flowers and herbs with the rinsing water from all of the veggies of that day’s meal. After lunch I would continue the watering with greywater captured from hand washing the meal’s dishes. (I use Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds or mild detergents because they are environmentally friendly.)

It doesn’t seem like a big action, but it is huge for me. Just one small effort in the fight to conserve water and save the planet. Now if I could only do it every day for every meal. That is the challenge. But life on the farm gets busy.

My brother Bill first got me interested in recycling greywater. Living up in the dry environs of Wyoming, water is a valuable commodity. He has a system of big buckets that he uses in his kitchen. At first glance I thought he had a plumbing problem, but he said no. After our meal, I jumped up to do the dishes. In an effort to empty the sink to start washing, I poured a bucket half-filled with greywater down the drain. My brother grimaced. “That’s my greywater.” He explained the logistics of his dishwashing and water recycling. “This is Wyoming. Every drop of water counts.” We washed the dishes together. Afterwards he toted the bucket of refuse water out back and poured it over a blob of melting snow and beige dirt, where his compost lurked beneath. Okay, I agreed with him in principle, but it was winter. There was nothing green to be seen. A return visit to Bill’s place in summertime convinced me. The backyard gardens grew a robust paradise of vegetables. Tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, chard, radishes and much more all flourished and overflowed their beds. Bill’s greywater was fertilizing his plants and lowering his water bill.

After seeing my brother’s success, I decided to try it at Pearl River Blues, and for the past few years, we’ve been putting a percentage of our greywater to use. We don’t make a big production of it. We haven’t rerouted plumbing or dug trenches. On busy days, we may only recycle a gallon of greywater. But it is worth it. Like cover cropping, composting, recycling, using organic seeds and fertilizers, employing drip line, carpooling and consolidating trips in the car—greywatering our flowers is just another tool we use here to be more sustainable. Maybe it will work for you, too. Happy Earth Day from the Pearl River Blues Green Team! #30#